Molly Surazhsky
PPE • People’s Power Enhancement
Begins October 12, 2020
View interactive locations map here
Hunter Shaw Fine Art is pleased to announce PPE • People’s Power Enhancement, a series of public artworks by Molly Surazhsky. Appearing simultaneously on 10 billboards across Los Angeles this October, PPE is an image campaign intended to engage the public in political action and social justice. Each billboard features an individual or duo wearing artist-made facemasks emblazoned with slogans such as “Care For All,” “Redistribute Wealth,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “Vote Nov. 3.” Surazhsky cast the campaign to represent a diverse spectrum of genders, ages, races and orientations, including an ex-Sandinista freedom fighter and his daughter, a local witch and her familiar, along with notable figures from LA’s community of artists and activists such as Barbara T. Smith, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, and Harry Gamboa Jr. Visually the campaign explores the relationship between advertising and propaganda, employing a pop sensibility to illuminate a link between fashion, politics and the body at a time of unprecedented social upheaval and corporate control of public - and private - spaces.
Throughout the series, Surazhsky incorporates numerous art historical references which speak to both the political nature of the project and her own heritage as a first-generation American of ex-Soviet descent, bringing PPE into conversation with Agitprop and Social Realism. The bold, graphic patterns of the backdrop and facemasks are appropriated from textile designs by Constructivist artist Varvara Stepanova who during the Russian Revolution designed aspirational clothing and accessories for citizens in revolt. PPE is also in direct dialog with the tradition of artist-made billboards in the United States such as the celebrated Guerilla Girls campaigns, or more recent projects like For Freedoms’ controversial 50 State Initiative spearheaded by Hank WIllis Thomas. However, Surazhsky subverts the text-heavy approach of those predecessors, focusing instead on the current political implications of the facemask. The mask has become emblematic of today’s compounded public health crisis of pandemia, police brutality, systemic racism, class disparity and environmental collapse. Because of this, Surazhsky’s progressive messaging upon the masks functions as a type of closed-captioning articulating the subtext of the object itself. In this way, PPE exhibits an affinity to Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ Untitled billboard from 1991, which also associated a specific object with a public health crisis: the image of an empty bed as a stark commentary on the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 90s.
Since COVID-19 reached Los Angeles in March of 2020, Molly Surazhsky has applied her practice to the pandemic relief effort, producing and donating facemasks to medical personnel and other members of the city’s most vulnerable populations. A limited edition of the masks featured in the People’s Power Enhancement billboards will be available to purchase at Hunter Shaw Fine Art through the remainder of the year. All proceeds from these sales will be donated to RAC (Revolutionary Autonomous Communities) and M.A.A.L.A (Mutual Aid Action Los Angeles) in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles.
Molly Surazhsky received a BFA from California Institute for the Arts, Valencia CA (2019) and attended Mountain School of the Arts in Los Angeles, CA (2017). Recent exhibitions include Mashacare: Home of the Freaks, Misfits & Weirdoes, Hunter Shaw Fine Art, Los Angeles (2019); Death Show, Elevator Mondays, Los Angeles (2018); EX NIHILO, Elevator Mondays, Los Angeles (2018); CO/LAB III, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA (2018); and El Acercamiento, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, Havana, CU (2017).
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PPE models include: Barbara T. Smith, Blakesley King, Carlos Largaespada, Courtney Coles, Derek Perry, Fiona Rose Casper-Strauss, Harry Gamboa Jr., Herbert Mendoza, Hunter Shaw, Izzie Swan, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Saida Largaespada, Taehee Kim, Tiana Brinton, Vicky Adams
Photography by: Courtney Coles
